Stalag by Starlight
by Belphegor
Summary: A series of "Hogan's Heroes" snippets and snapshots. 6. Nobody in the barracks ever stops to contemplate the "might-have-beens" or the "almosts", or at least they try not to, because a guy can lose a lot of sleep over stuff like that.
1. Hopes and Dreams

**Author's note**: Hello again :o) I mentioned in _Bobby, Robert, Pauline & Co_ that I had a handful of HH-related vignettes (in fact, the aforementioned story started off as one); I'm posting them here. For the moment there's just three or four of them, and they're far from exceptional in terms of quality and/or originality, but I'm fond of the little snippets and character explorations and I thought I'd share.

A thousand apologies to Victor Young for mangling the title of his beautiful number. I'm just so bad at thinking up story titles that I have to resort to ripping out classics, even though starlight doesn't actually enter the picture (yet). (I have to say I'm partial to Ella Fitzgerald's version, by the way.)

_Disclaimer: Despite the nearly-uncontrollable urge to yell "I own nothing – _noth_ing!", I'll just throw my hands up and say I'm just a humble writer who likes to string words together and see how they look. Mostly they just look like words …_

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><p><strong>Stalag by Starlight<strong>

_1. Hopes and Dreams_

Everybody has immediate plans for after the war.

More than anything, Newkirk wants to go back to the Red Lion, have a couple of English beers, a shepherd's pie or a ploughman's, with pickled eggs and salt and vinegar crisps. He misses the dart games, the warm, smoky atmosphere that smells just how a pub ought to smell, the cheerfully rowdy Friday nights, and he tries not to think about who used to drink there whom he might not drink with anymore.

LeBeau dreams of the hottest, most scalding shower he can imagine, because he's so sick of feeling cold all the time; he never wants another cold shower in the biting cold of January again. In his mind, Stalag 13 equals cold, and he actually has to remind himself of the four summers he's spent in that place. A good meal comes a clear second on his list, if only because he knows from the letters he gets that food in France is getting hard to come by, and that they'll probably have to go hungry for a while even after the war ends.

Kinch misses Detroit. He's a city boy at heart, and ever since he got to England – and later to Germany – he's realised just how much the various sounds, smells and sights of his hometown mean to him. When he's alone at his radio and it gets so quiet in the tunnel that it feels he's the only one alive in the place, he methodically sorts through his memories of tall brick or stone buildings, glass and metal shining in the sun, the busy sidewalks, the heavy traffic, the trolley on Michigan, and sometimes it's enough to make him forget the twinge in his heart.

Carter never gave much thought to the future; he usually lives in the present. He doesn't really know what he will do after the war is over, but he hopes he'll be able to come back home and make snowmen with his little cousins again. His memories are a bit blurry now with everything that happened in what seems sometimes like so little time and sometimes like ages, but he remembers that nothing was more important than finding just the right carrot for the nose, and would old Mr Jones next door lent them his old hat, and that felt good. His little cousins are not so little now, but he hopes they remember it, too.

Hogan just wants to fly again. It's where he belongs, and he always has; he never feels that pure, intense thrill of absolute freedom with his feet on the ground. What he longs for the most is to fly his plane back to the States and see American soil under his wings again. Of course, he also knows that his superiors will probably promote him behind a desk when this is over, and that it's the right way for an officer's career to go; but he can't ignore the old mischievous voice whispering in his ear that promotions are nothing if they take the open sky from you.

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><p>Believe it or not, I had trouble finding what Hogan would want most. But once the idea got hold, it didn't let go :o)<p>

I should put up the next vignette in a week or so. Till then, bye, and thank you for reading!


	2. Kicking off the Game

**Author's note**: this one is a really short piece, and as much as I'd like to say it was written to fit around the time of the Superbowl it really wasn't :o) It's set when Hogan was quite new to Stalag XIII and just setting up operations. It's just a harmless little bit of fun, really.

_Disclaimer: I don't own the name of Harper (who was mentioned once or twice as one of the Barracks 2 background characters), but I own the fact that he's English. Any other character and place belongs to CBS._

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><p><strong>Stalag by Starlight<strong>

_2. Kicking off the Game_

"Colonel?"

"Yes, Harper, what is it?"

"I … don't think an American football match is going to work as a diversion, sir, if I may. Or it might work a little too well."

"Care to elaborate on that?"

"You weren't there two months ago, sir. It was a mess. Davies and Saunders refused to throw the ball to each other because of some fight they'd had earlier, and Floyd caught it and ran all the way to Barracks 8 where Collins tackled him and started a fight. And I think it was about then that Newkirk and LeBeau noticed they weren't playing rugby and that they actually were on the same team."

"I see. Well, Harper, I think it's time to give the Stalag XIII Football Championship another try. After all, we got something now that you didn't have last time."

"What's that, sir?"

"A downed flyer to pick up."

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><p>Maybe it's because I grew up with <em>Astérix<em> comics, but there's something I've always found hilarious in the image of a great big cloud of shouts, fists, feet and the occasional strange implement (like a hammer, or fishes). Think the big fight at about the last third of _Chicken Run_. Well, that's how I picture the fight that followed the first attempt at (American) football in Stalag XIII :D

Of course, now that they have proper motivation, it's going to be another story entirely …

Hope you liked :o]


	3. Senses

**Author's note**: Character exploration time again – completely and totally unrelated to the previous snippets, but then again this 'story' is basically a collection of odds and ends I just hope you like.

_Disclaimer: I own the basic idea for this chapter, but that's it; CBS owns the rest. Or Bing Crosby does/did. Personally, I prefer this last possibility – channels don't create characters, people do :o)_

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><p><strong>Stalag by Starlight<strong>

_3. Senses_

Hogan is all eyes. He prides himself in his knowledge of various goings-on, because it's a deadly game they play, and he has to see everything in order to know everything in case something goes wrong – and something usually does. While he talks to you, whether he's explaining the particulars of a plan, spinning you a line, or just thinking aloud, his eyes dart everywhere, scan his surroundings, size you up, and when he's finished he knows anything he wants to know.

Carter's nose got him out of many a hairy situation, literally (mixing chemicals can be dangerous if you don't know exactly what you're doing, and the wrong smell can be a pretty good red signal) or not (for all that the guys say he's oblivious to a lot of stuff and absent-minded to boot, he's gotten pretty good at sniffing out trouble over the years); sometimes he feels that he – and the other guys – doesn't trust it as often as he should.

Newkirk is the feather-light touch on the door of Klink's safe, the friendly hand on your shoulder, and the white-knuckled grip on the handle of his "pencil sharpener". When he has a mind to, his fingers can fish unnoticed into your pockets and cull whatever is hidden in them; no door, no lock can resist them.

LeBeau tastes life as though it was a five-course meal that somebody else prepared: he takes things as they come, savouring the good and dismissing the bad as a shoddy cooking job. It makes the good moments all the richer and sweeter for it, and when something comes that leaves a bitter taste, he does what he's always done – rolls up his sleeves and tries to fix it.

Kinchloe is the ever-vigilant ears of the camp. He doesn't talk much, but he can always find time to listen to you, perhaps offer a word of support and comfort; his warm, companionable silence works just as well. In the dead of night, when the men are either out in the woods, pacing in the barracks, or asleep in their bunks, he's the one who stays at the radio and listens to the world going on, with and without them.

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><p>Kinch's role as the radioman always strikes me as a deeply lonely job despite the importance of communication – you're not on your own (not with so many people you can interact with) but you're still physically alone … It's like being the only human being in a room full of ghosts. Or maybe my mind words in strange ways and I tend to over-think things :o)<p>

See you next week, and thanks for reading!


	4. Letters From Home

**Author's note**: I always found drama hard to write, as I'm usually afraid of lapsing into mawkish; therefore, when I do, I tend to go for the minimalistic approach. You tell me if it works in this snapshot :o)

_Disclaimer: CBS owns the rights to _Hogan's Heroes_, and I don't even own the DVDs. Which is a bloody shame, I know, but c'est la vie, right?_

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><p><strong>Stalag by Starlight<strong>

_4. Letters From Home_

Something Newkirk notes about the little Frenchman who has been sharing his barracks for a few months now is that he can get quite demonstrative when he's in a good mood; it doesn't happen often – none of them really have reason to _be_ in a good mood, not in a prisoner of war camp – but when Louis LeBeau is happy, really happy, he talks a lot with this huge, infectious grin on his face, and for all that he's about five foot three he actually seems a lot larger.

The first time Newkirk notices that is one spring morning in 1941, a little after Schultz delivers their mail. He has been engrossed in a letter from Mavis, reading between the lines that his little sister is scared and sad and tired, struggling to keep a brave façade as German bombs destroy their old neighbourhood and kill their friends. Harper's and Mills' faces look as grim as he feels, and Davies only looks a mite better; so when Newkirk sees from the corner of his eye LeBeau downright beaming down at his letter, he peeks over the Frenchman's shoulder at the words he can't understand, because frankly he could use some cheering up right now.

"Looks like you got some good news there, mate," he says, fully expecting to be told to mind his own business. "What happened, Krauts buggered off Paris?"

LeBeau's face looks blank for a second – he's still not used to the finer points of English slang – but he works it out soon enough and laughs. Newkirk suspects it's more because of whatever's in the letter than because of the rather poor joke.

"Non, but frankly, today they can go get stuffed – is that how you say it? – for all I care. I'm an uncle!"

Newkirk's eyebrows shoot up, and a few heads turn his way.

"I've never been an uncle before," he adds, the ridiculously big grin still lighting up his whole face.

Newkirk doesn't quite know what to feel. On one hand, he's thinking of his sister sleeping in Tube stations and writing him letters from bomb shelters; on the other, the mere thought that somehow, in the middle of war, pain and disaster, something as innocent and miraculous as a baby can be born is making him feel a little warmer.

"Congratulations, Louis," he says, and he means it. And then LeBeau shows him a picture of his sister Adèle – young, rather pretty with a round, fresh face and the same dark eyes as her brother – and her newly-born daughter – a nondescript little bundle in her arms – and Newkirk sometimes has a bit of trouble understanding his half-French half-English ramblings, but that's okay. He listens to the Frenchman's giddy chatter, and while Mavis doesn't leave his mind, he can't help but grin, too.

A few months later, when it looks like Hitler is too busy with the new Russian front to keep bombing British civilians, Newkirk talks to LeBeau about Mavis, once or twice. He doesn't elaborate, he doesn't say that sometimes the letters he got – and the one letter he thankfully didn't – keep him awake for nights on end, but he knows the little Frenchman is good at reading between the lines.

And then, one autumn in September, Newkirk is reading a new letter from his sister (who sounds more optimistic, even though life is still hard), and he becomes aware of the absolute silence from the top bunk in front of his.

LeBeau is sitting with his back to the room, and he's staring at the letter in his lap; Newkirk can't quite see his face, but his shoulders are slumped and his head is bowed, and that can't be a good thing.

Plus, he looks _small_. LeBeau never looks small.

Everybody is busy with their own mail, so nobody really pays attention to Newkirk when he climbs down his bunk and up on LeBeau's.

He tries to peek at the letter, but it's in French, and it's upside down.

"Who's it from, then?" he asks quietly, and the dark eyes finally focus.

"Adèle." It's a good thing Newkirk has good hearing. Otherwise he would have missed the whisper. "I, er … I'm not an uncle anymore."

Newkirk thinks about the smiling, dark-eyed young woman and the bundle in her arms, and says nothing, because he doesn't know what to say.

After a few minutes, LeBeau raises his eyes and says slowly, "Do you have a picture of your sister?"

He does, and he goes to get it from his locker. It's more than two years old, and he hasn't looked at it in a while; maybe Mavis has got thinner since the last time he saw her. Maybe she's had her hair done, or bought another dress. But it's still her in that picture, shielding her eyes from the sunlight and grinning mischievously at the camera.

She's good-looking, his Mave is. Any other time, he'd warn his friend that she's off-limits, because he's seen the little black book he carries around in his pocket, quite similar to his own; but not today.

LeBeau looks at the picture, smiles a little and says, "She looks a lot like you."

He doesn't make it sound like it's a bad thing.

The next time LeBeau is in a good mood, he talks a lot, and hums snippets of songs Newkirk has never heard while he stirs the contents of the pot on the stove. He gets the usual few grins and eye rolls mixed with a bit of annoyance from the other fellows; Newkirk just watches him from the corner of his eye and smiles.

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><p>One of my great-aunts is named Adèle – she was born in 1917, so it fits, dates-wise. I think it's the first time I was able to look in my own family's names for a fanfic, and I'm inordinately happy about it :o)<p>

Thank you for reading, and see you next week :o]


	5. Misfits

**Author's note**: This is the closest I've got to the "how it all began" ploy so far; I'd like to dig into it some day, but in the meantime there's this little piece, which I hope is not too shabby. Plus it did give me an occasion (excuse?) to play a little with the background guys and try to flesh out the characters behind the names I started using since the first chapter of _Soul Food_.

_Disclaimer: I own the "background" characters (Harper, Saunders, Davies …) but not their names, which I picked somewhat at random from the HH wiki (there are a lot of them to choose from!); the Heroes don't belong to me. And honestly, even though they're fictional characters, can you see them _belonging_ to anyone? (Oh yeah. Apart from CBS, that is …)_

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><p><strong>Stalag by Starlight<strong>

_5. Misfits_

Private Timothy Harper knows that some of the Barracks 2 boys don't understand why it always seems to be Colonel Hogan and the other four who go on missions and get all the danger – and the excitement, Floyd muttered last time one of them got back from town with shining eyes and lipstick on his collar.

He doesn't mind.

He's been there since the summer of '40, one of the very first English prisoners sent to Stalag 13, and somehow, somewhere between the shock, the confusion and the pain of these first few weeks, he formed a tentative friendship with a big, broad-shouldered Australian corporal and a scrawny Welshman sergeant that proved solid – if only because Harper so often acts as the voice of reason between Saunders and Davies.

What does pique his interest is how on Earth the little five-man group works so well when, as individuals, they seemed to fit in this Stalag like square pegs in round holes as they arrived one by one.

First, there was Newkirk, whom the prisoner transfer truck delivered a few weeks after Harper and the others. Looking back, Harper has to admit that the other blokes – himself included – gave him the cold shoulder a little bit, mostly because of class bias but also because he quickly acquired a reputation as sticky-fingered. Exactly how that came to be, Harper didn't know, because none of _his_ meagre possessions ever made their way into Newkirk's locker, but somehow, at some point, from 'that shady Cockney fellow' he became 'the thief'. The fact that he was cheerfully unapologetic about cheating at cards didn't help a bit.

LeBeau arrived a couple of months later, the only Frenchman in a truck full of British prisoners. His uniform and his short stature made him stick out like a sore thumb even before he opened his mouth, and in these first few weeks he pretty much kept to himself and didn't talk much to the others – Harper would later find out that his English wasn't actually very good before he was captured, but he quickly improved as a matter of survival. The only one he did talk to (or at, more often than not) was Newkirk, who – in his own peculiar way – seemed to take to this newcomer, who not only didn't know (nor care) a thing about British class distinctions and regional accents, but shrugged off a whispered warning from Davies about the East Ender's alleged tendency to petty theft.

The two got along like a house on fire – the kind you run away from as quickly as possible.

To everybody's surprise, behind the smart-arse quips and the slick retorts, Newkirk turned out to have quite the fiery temper when wound up, and the Frenchman never backed down once; both finally ended up in a dust-up, until Sergeant Schultz grabbed each of them by the collar and put them in the cooler to sort it out. When they came out, they seemed to have reached common ground; they still butted heads from time to time, but together they also established a new record for escape attempts.

The third member of the 'core team' to arrive to Stalag 13 was Hogan himself. Harper – and the other guys – watched him surreptitiously during the first few days after his arrival. He was quiet, watchful, but little by little they realised that he was brimming with a sort of calm confidence that sometimes gave the men the feeling that he hadn't been sent to prison so much as posted to a new station. Which was, as they found out, half true. He stood out, too, the only officer in a Luft Stalag full of junior and senior NCOs, and one of the only Americans in camp (that changed quickly, too, as the United States entered the war and started bombing Germany, bringing Olsen, Addison and Floyd to Barracks 2).

What distinguished Hogan most from every other man in camp, however, was the strong sense of _purpose_. It made the other prisoners slightly wary of him, and it was some time before the whole camp started to trust him completely.

Staff Sergeant Kinchloe was first assigned to Barracks 7. This in itself was not a problem – this barrack was not particularly known for its troublemakers – but Edward Bowers was in Barracks 7, and he … objected to Kinchloe's presence under the same roof. Vocal, relentless bullying ensued, Bowers trying anything to provoke Kinch short of physical violence. Kinch could have laid him out with just one punch, but was too conscious of his own strength (not to mention too clever) to let his self-control slip. Their barrack mates were too scared or preoccupied with problems of their own to intervene; however, it got so bad that some of them eventually went to Colonel Hogan for help. Hogan did his own bit of investigation; the next thing Harper (and the rest of the camp) knew, Bowers got fourteen days in the cooler for some sloppy escape attempt, and Kinch was assigned to Barracks 2.

Hogan's core team gained a radio man, and the barracks gained a strong, sensible man with a good sense of humour, whose even temper helped keep all of theirs in check no matter how crazy things got – and they _did_.

Sometime after operations really started, Andrew Carter was transferred from Stalag 5. He seemed friendly, if a little awkward and eccentric, and eager to get to know everyone; most of them took him in right away, more or less eagerly (from Newkirk and LeBeau taking it in their stride to Floyd being a little wary of 'that screwball'). Exactly why he was transferred there in the first place didn't come up for the first few days, and then Harper heard Davies tell Saunders that Floyd had told Baker that he had heard Carter had blown up his old barracks, and things went downhill from there. Davies said nothing, but squinted coldly at Carter in a manner that made the American nervous; Saunders gave wordless, apologetic shrugs but was too unsure himself to voice outright disapproval of his friend's attitude; and Floyd actually went to Hogan to complain that Carter's presence in Barracks 2 endangered all of them.

Harper liked Carter. But he felt rather alone – the men he was closest to were of the opinion that he was a dangerous arsonist (or a mad bomber, depending), and the ones who stood by Carter (Kinch, Newkirk and LeBeau) were already such a tight-knit group that Harper felt slightly left out whenever he talked with them.

Hogan listened to the complaints, and then called everyone for a round table (so to speak). He explained that Technical Sergeant Carter had indeed been transferred after causing a small explosion in the recreation hall (as part of a coordinated but hare-brained escape attempt that had resulted in four escapes – except, unfortunately, Carter himself, whose way out had ended up blocked); he stated that Carter's skills could be a great asset if handled properly, and that he intended to use them; and finished by asking if anyone had a problem with Carter being a part of the team. His eyes glittered as he spoke.

Harper didn't miss Kinch's level gaze, Newkirk's narrowed stare, and LeBeau's fierce glare.

Floyd shuffled, Davies stuck his hands in his pockets, and Mills shook his head. Carter was in.

Sometimes Harper wonders how these five men came to make such a competent team and work together so well despite being so wildly different. Maybe that's precisely it, though: maybe they're five pieces of the same jigsaw puzzle who wouldn't fit anywhere but with one another.

Timothy Harper never felt like a misfit before. But considering the work they do and the part they play in this war, he doesn't mind feeling slightly like one now.

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><p>I think I like Harper. He's a good literary tool – sort of like an outsider looking in, but at the same time somebody who shares a lot of the guys' history as a fellow prisoner and (possibly) spy – but I reckon that, deep down, he's a pretty decent fellow, too, if a bit cautious and indecisive sometimes :o)<p>

I've got another snippet cooking, and the next chapter of _Into the Woods_ will be up by Tuesday. À la prochaine!


	6. Almost

**Author's note**: This snippet is not from one particular character's point of view; it's what the prisoners are thinking, be it Hogan, his core gang, or the guys in the background. Because let's face it, as fanfiction writers and readers we all had those moments where we pictured what might have been _if_ [insert choice here] – and I plead guilty as charged, seeing the snapshot I committed back in July.

_Disclaimer: I own the complete HH DVD boxed set, and I'm still gleefully happy about being able to shift both audio track and subtitles from English to French and vice versa – and being at least able to understand _all_ the one-liners! But apart from that, it's all CBS and Bing Crosby's._

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><p><strong>Stalag by Starlight<strong>

_6. Almost_

They all have their own personal nightmares, war-related or not; they're all soldiers, even though a lot of them didn't choose to be before war broke out and they were called up to fight. Anyone in camp who could state with absolute truthfulness that so far he hasn't lost a comrade or a friend would either be a liar, insanely lucky, or the most friendless man on Earth.

But what usually brings on these nightmares – what makes them wake up in a cold sweat, heart pounding, or stare up at the ceiling or the bed above theirs for hours, eyes wide open in the dark, with memories, thoughts and emotions jumbled together in their minds – is the almosts. The could-have-beens.

Not the happy kind.

If that bomb had been just three seconds early …

If that bullet had struck just that little bit deeper …

If Hochstetter's Gestapo superiors had paid attention to his ramblings for once …

If that crazy plan had not worked precisely when it did …

Usually, the natural follow-up to this kind of thought is, "We'd all be dead by now". Or, "Operations would shut down and half the guys would be shot – maybe even me".

More often than not, though, the next part is, "I would have lost a good friend".

Nobody brings up the insomnia and the nightmares after an 'almost'. They don't have to – everybody's thinking the same thing. _It could have been me. It could have been him, or them. It could have been all of us._ And although the last two definitely crop up most often, it's a rare man who can in all honestly say which one he fears the most.

The other thing no-one talks about after an 'almost' is the fear that, one of these days, they will run out of 'almosts'. Karma turns bad. Luck runs out.

They all hope or pray as hard as they can that the war will end before their luck does.

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><p>I'm still slowly working on a couple of stories, word after word, including a one-shot which hopefully will see the "light" of the archive before next year. I'm keeping my fingers crossed :o)<p> 


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